Community Builder Update Issue

Question

I have a site and it's running with Community Builder 1.9.1 and this version is no longer maintained by their developers. I have Joomla! 3.4.8 running on my server.

I have seen the changelog and newer version files, it's a very big update including so many changes.

Main issue is

I have to update CB to latest version but some of the core files have been changed in it (I didn't do it). So how I can maintain the same functionality with the latest version?

I am running a site with a really huge number of users so I don't want to take the risk to down whole website for days.

Answer 1

There is no simple way. This is roughly how I would proceed:

1: Make a full backup of your existing website
2: Install it locally
3: Identify all modifications to your community builder extension by comparing it to a fresh 1.9.1
4: Update community builder
5: Apply all modifications again. Probably you can't apply them 1:1
6: Replace your online version with your local version

For step 1 + 2 Akeeba Backup can be a great help. Step 5 is probably the most critical part and requires programming skills. For step 6 I would suggest to make a backup again, update your online version directly and then copy and replace all the community builder extension files from local.

I hope all modifications to your old community builder are documented well. This could help a lot. Good luck!